Brewery Hop to Lake Bluff Brewing Company

on Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The spot is already picked out for the Lake Bluff Brewery. Recently they received their licensing from the city, they are now in the process of getting the same from the state. The location is right in the middle of the quant downtown area of Lake Bluff. The brewery will be a mere 1,000 or so square feet with 60% used for brewing with the other 40% used for a small tasting room. The tasting room would allow patrons to purchase pints, growlers, and tasters of the different beers.

The brewery will start out as a three barrel system. Small by most brewery startup standards but Dave and Rodd's vision is to be measured as they go forward, never over extending themselves. They will both continue with their normal jobs until, grow the brewery, with hopes of a move to an industrial area close by that would allow them to expend to a 30 barrel system. Dave will be the brewer with plans of brewing once per week to start.

The brewery will have a 500 square foot section of basement for barrel aging. If that isn't enough, a local store has another 2,000 square feet or so that can be used for barrels. If they ask me, I will give them plenty of ideas for filling all that room with barrels! :)

Getting local beer bars and/or similar accounts is their goal to start. Selling kegs to between 12 and 24 accounts would push their current plans to the limit. As they grow, Dave will change his brewing schedule until the limit of the fermentation has been reached.

Six year round beers are currently on the docket.

Softtail - American IPA

Hardtail - American Imperial IPA

Bohemian Blonde - Blonde Ale

Hefeweizen

Pale Ale - with a big dry hop presence

Bourbon Stout

Currently there are two seasonals and/or one-time beers: a barleywine and scotch ale. This group of beers is still in the works. It will constantly be in development.

Rodd (big beers such as barleywines and Russian imperial stouts) and Dave (caramel, malty, ipas that are balanced) differ in the beers styles they favor making them a good mix. Dave mentioned that making a quality "light" beer is exciting to him, since it is tough to get a light colored beer that still has some good aroma and taste.

Rich and I were treated to a taste of Softtail, Hardtail, and Bohemian Blonde. Bohemian was the first beer we tasted. We were told that it wasn't completely carbonated and the first time that the beer had been brewed. In spite of this, the beer was really good. Probably the best of the three we tasted, even though all three were solid beers. 5.6% ABV is cleanly woven into a straw colored beer that had good aroma and fantastic flavor.

Softtail and Hardtail are little brother and big brother. Similar beers in which one is just a smaller version of the other. Softtail is boiled longer to get a little more caramel notes in the body while Amarillo and Simcoe are used to dry hop this hop monster into a fantastic nose. At 6.2% ABV and 65 IBUs it is little compared to the 8.8% ABV and 90 IBUs of Hardtail. The alcohol is well hidden while the caramel comes out in the taste and nose. A similar dry hopping profile make this hoppy beer an all around winner.